View full sizePhotograph courtesy of Jacob HollowayJacob Holloway, 15, of Sylvania, Ohio, bagged a trophy buck during a special youth hunt recently at the Mosquito Creek Wildlife Area. It was the second trophy deer the young hunter has harvested during a youth hunt at the wildlife area.

Rumors of a huge antlered deer roaming the Mosquito Creek Wildlife Area went from local fiction to absolute fact when Jacob Holloway of Sylvania, Ohio, recently bagged an 18-point buck while on a youth deer gun hunt there. Just as impressive, it was the second trophy buck Holloway has taken during a special youth hunt at the Trumbull County wildlife area.

Holloway, 15, was accompanied by his father, Jason Holloway, on Nov. 6 when the big buck wandered past the young sportsman. Five years ago, also under his father's watchful eye, Holloway took a 140-inch typical buck during the special youth hunt.

A sophomore at Southview High School, Holloway is an avid hunter and baseball player, said his father. In spring and summer, baseball dominates the young sportsman's life. Fishing and hunting keep him on the water or in the woods and fields the rest of the year.

"Jacob started shooting a single-shot [.22-caliber] rifle and passed his hunter safety course when he was very young," said Jason Holloway, a truck driver and lifelong hunter. "Jacob began hunting squirrels and rabbits with me and shot his first deer when he was 9 years old, a nice 8-pointer. Jacob has a couple of beagles we take out to hunt rabbits, and we're both avid duck hunters."

Jacob Holloway was a catcher and third baseman for Southview High School last spring.

"He's a very good athlete and a bright kid, with a 3.82-point grade average," said his father.

The 9,021-acre Mosquito area is known for its trophy deer, a reason many sportsmen apply for special lotteries for adult and youth deer hunts. The mix of wet woods and big timber, with a few agricultural fields thrown in, provides great habitat for deer.

Area manager Lou Orosz was aware of a deer with massive antlers on the wildlife area after a technician found in January what they believed were sheds, or discarded antlers, from Holloway's big buck. As hunters know, deer lose their antlers each winter and grow new ones throughout the spring and summer. The wildlife officials can't be sure the shed antlers were once worn by Holloway's trophy deer, but the antlers were very similar in size and shape to the ones sported by Holloway's buck.

"We never thought we'd see a bigger buck than Jacob's first one at the Mosquito area," said Jason Holloway. "But you always hope there's another monster buck out there. This time, there was. And Jacob got it."

Safe hunting: Ohio hunters have had a very safe deer gun season so far this week.

There are 420,000 shotgun hunters expected to hunt deer this week and during the extended weekend on Dec. 17-18. There have been two accidents reported since Monday's opening day and no fatalities. The incidents in Portage and Vinton counties were both self-inflicted gunshot wounds. The Portage County hunter shot himself in the foot, while the Vinton County accident involved a hand injury. Wildlife officials do not release the names of hunters involved in accidents.

There was a fatal hunting accident Friday in Lawrence County, before the deer gun season began. A man hunting with his 11-year-old son was shot and killed while in a woods near Hanging Rock, Ohio.

Good weather needed: Heavy rains all around the Buckeye State on Monday and Tuesday made deer hunting difficult during the first two days of the popular gun season. The Division of Wildlife reported 23,600 deer were killed on opening day, a 39 percent decline from 2010.

As the weather has gradually improved, deer hunters have had more success. By Wednesday evening, the deer harvest had increased to 45,780, a drop of 25 percent from a year ago.

Mike Tonkovich heads the wildlife agency's deer programs, and has worked to liberalize limits on antlerless deer to trim the size of Ohio's deer herd. That keeps the quality of the deer herd high, helps prevent crop damage and lowers the number of deer killed on the highways. It will also mean fewer deer killed by hunters.

"We've been taking about a quarter of a million deer each year in Ohio in recent years, and that has helped to reduce the size of the herd," said Tonkovich, who has estimated the state's deer population at 750,000 bucks and does. "A harvest of about 225,000 animals would be more realistic this year."

Electronic success: Ohio's new electronic check-in system for big game hunters is working well, reports wildlife official Jamey Graham of the Division of Wildlife office in Akron. About 75 percent of the hunters who bagged deer this week checked them in by telephone (1-877-TAGITOH) or on the Internet at wildohio.com, said Graham, instead of at traditional deer check stations.

The biggest problem has been the fragile paper used by sportsmen who print the licenses and permits they get online. Big rains plagued hunters on Monday's opening day of the deer gun season, soaking some licenses and permits and making them unreadable.

"The system worked even better than I was hoping," said assistant chief David Lane. "We had a lot of positive emails and telephone calls about the new system. Like anything else, though, it will take time for everyone to adjust to it."

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